What is the Current Lone Worker Safety Landscape?

In March 2025, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published its annual report on violence at work.

The data pulls from three main studies, including its own RIDDOR reporting numbers; the Labour Force Survey (LFS); and the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), facilitated by the Office of National Statistics (ONS).

It segments workplace violence into two categories: physical assault and threats or verbal abuse.

Incidents of violence

During the period 2023-24, the CSEW reports there were 642,000 incidents of violence, with 279,000 adults experiencing some form of incident.

This means that the average victim experienced 2.3 episodes, suggesting a pattern of repeated targeting, a common issue faced by lone workers in sectors such as utilities, retail, security and hospitality.

The CSEW study found that those in the service protection sector, such as the emergency services and public-facing security roles, are at the highest risk of assaults and threats, followed by those who work in health and social care.

This trend is reflected in the LFS findings and HSE’s own RIDDOR statistics. The two data sets reveal that those working in public service industries, including healthcare, social care and emergency services, are most vulnerable to incidents of violence.

Victims of workplace violence experience an average of 2.3 incidents each year

Sector analysis

According to the ONS, those who work in the public sector form part of the largest segment of workers in the UK (approximately 6.15 million people as of March 2025), with a large cohort employed in public facing roles that are vulnerable to incidents of violence.

The latest NHS England annual staff survey reports that one in seven frontline workers experienced some form of physical violence either from patients, patients’ relatives or other members of the public.

1/7 frontline NHS workers experience physical violence each year

Away from the public sector, retail is seeing a significant year-on-year increase in theft and violence against its workers.

In its annual crime survey, the British Retail Consortium cited that incidents of violence and abuse in 2023/24 climbed to more than 2,000 per day, in comparison to 1,300 the previous year.

Staggeringly, this is four times the pre-pandemic figure of 450 during 2019/2020, demonstrating a sharp increase in the number of incidents in just 4 years.

These figures are supported by data from our own Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC). For the year up to July 2025, almost a third of all alarms raised (32%) were from the retail sector, with housing associations and local authorities completing the top three sectors.

Every alarm we receive is categorised based on the nature of the incident, and the prevailing categories are both verbal abuse and violence.

We’ve also witnessed a concerning upward trend of both genuine and precautionary incidents. From August 2023 to August 2024, we recorded a 100% increase in genuine incidents (28 to 56) and a 61% increase in precautionary incidents (90 to 145).

*Genuine Alarm: An alarm raised when a user is in immediate danger or facing a threatening situation.

*Precautionary Alarm: An alarm raised before carrying out a task perceived to be high risk, prior to any actual danger occurring.

“We’ve seen a big increase in alarms coming through our ARC, which is a clear reflection of the growing risks frontline workers are facing.

What’s particularly concerning is that both genuine and precautionary alarms have increased so significantly, showing that not only are incidents happening more often, but workers are also feeling the need to take extra measures to feel safe."

Jo Walker, Head of Service Operations

32% of all alarms raised to our ARC were from the retail sector

We've seen a 100% increase in genuine incidents and a 61% increase in precautionary incidents